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AirBridgeCargo to add new routes after record result

AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC), Russia’s largest scheduled cargo airline and part of Volga-Dnepr Group, has started its 10th anniversary year with a record performance in the first six months of 2014 as it transported 188,354 tons of cargo across its international network, up 16% on the previous year.

The growth reflects airline’s strong market positioning on the routes linking major cargo destinations in Asia, Europe and North America as well as the success of the ABC’s own business development activities. Freight ton-kilometres in the 1 January-30 June, 2014 period, rose by 19%, exceeding the industry average growth of 4.4%.

AirBridgeCargo also continued to out-perform the market in terms of its average load factors in the first half of 2014, reporting a network-wide average of 72%. This compares to an industry average of 45% in the first 5 months of the year.

During the first 6 months of 2014, ABC continued to extend its international network and strengthen its position on existing markets. In the United States, it added a second new route to Dallas/Fort Worth and also increased frequencies to Chicago. In Europe, ABC launched flights to Leipzig, Munich, and Malmo, and opened a direct service from Frankfurt to Chicago.

By adding new destinations and improving connectivity with its Moscow hub, AirBridgeCargo now offers an extensive choice of routes for its international customers as well as 384 connections with the delivery time below 48 hours on almost all of its origin-destination pairs.

ABC’s commitment to ongoing improvement of its service levels delivered further benefits for its customers in the first half of the year, with its “Delivered-As-Promised” index staying again above 80%.

The airline’s focus on developing its home market and attracting more import traffic into Russia resulted in a 13% YTD growth in tonnage on its routes to Russia in the first six months of 2014. The highest growth was generated on routes from Asia and North America with 29% and 23% growth respectively. The total volume of imports carried by ABC into Russia increased to 42,676 tons during the half-year.

Denis Ilin, Executive President of AirBridgeCargo Airlines, said: “The challenges which the global air cargo market continues to face have not held back ABC’s development. We have achieved our goals for the first half of the year and lay down ambitious plans for the second half of 2014, which will include launching of more new routes and increasing our frequencies on a number of existing routes, as well as growing our fleet. We will surely keep focus on our home market, not only by developing additional import business to Russia but also by launching domestic routes using the Boeing 737 freighter fleet of Atran Airlines, another part of Volga-Dnepr Group. We are on track for good 2014 and projecting our total tonnage for the year to exceed 400,000 tons of cargo.”